Date
3 June 2024
The Bill to amend the Payment Times Reporting Act 2020 was introduced to Parliament on 29 May 2024.
The Bill implements the overhaul to the Act set out in the Government response to the Statutory Review of the Payment Times Reporting Act 2020 and delivers on the government’s commitment to improve small business payment times.
The amendments to the Act will:
- Revise the objects of the Act to focus on changing large business conduct for the benefit of small businesses
- Reduce regulatory burden by simplifying and streamlining reporting through consolidated reporting
- Empower the Minister to make a direction to require slow paying large businesses to publish statements that they are a slow small business payer in certain documents
- Expand the compliance tools available to the Regulator to efficiently gather information and remediate non-compliance, and
- Address inefficiencies in the current Act.
The Bill includes transitional provisions which detail when reporting obligations under consolidated structures and revised requirements will apply. The Bill and the Explanatory Memorandum is available on the Australian Parliament House website.
Enquiries on the Bill and the reforms to the Payment Times Reporting Scheme can be sent to: paymentimesreformsSMB@treasury.gov.au